Toll collector arrested for 'grand theft' on Florida Turnpike

A toll collector was arrested for stealing tolls yesterday at the Leesburg mainline plaza in Lake County Florida. Seerajn Dhoray, 58, an employee of Faneuil Group, toll collection contractor to Florida's Turnpike, was charged with "grand theft" (see comment below) following two weeks in which his thievery was observed.

The surveillance started after a $24 discrepancy was found in the cash he turned in as compared with the amount due according to lane equipment. Video surveillance soon caught Dhoray stuffing bills in his pockets.

During the two week surveillance his thievery grew and one day his cash was over $300 short. He was arrested at his toll booth when the accumulated theft was about $1400.

He was found with two $20 bills in his pocket when arrested. He has signed a confession to the theft.

The Leesburg toll plaza is the most northerly toll point on the Turnpike and is northwest of Orlando.

"We'll catch you..."

Christa Deason a Turnpike spokesman says thievery is stupid as well as wrong.

"In the training sessions we tell the trainees: they check the amount of cash you turn in. And we tell them we are watching them. We tell them: If you steal we'll catch you, but I guess this guy just didn't believe it."

Deason says stealing from toll booths is on the decline. For a start there is less cash around because more is being paid electronically. Second the monitoring is getting better, and most collectors know it.

"The public expects us to be good guardians of the money, so we watch."

The first line of defense, she says, is the check of cash due from the lane equipment - axle counting treadles and loops - that count vehicle passes and compute vehicle class. Then there are various forms of surveillance including cameras and systems for storing and retrieving video.

"There are other things we do (to guard the money) which we don't go into detail on," she says.

SEMANTIC COMMENT: What is grand about theft, you may ask? Grand in modern English means good, splendid. It's an approving word. Lawmakers surely don't mean by the charge of "grand theft" to tell us this theft is good, do they?

The legal use of the adjective 'grand' goes back to 1066 and the Norman invasion of England when French was made the language of the English courts. Grand is French for large or big. Like the stuck-up Starbucks "Latte Grande." Perhaps that's Italian? Just a variant of French.

This holdover infiltration of French and Italian into English law should be purged. There's a constructive cause for politicians of all political colors this election season. Translating the laws into English. Mod vernacular. A Grand Theft becomes a Big Heist? Regular theft becomes what? Borrowing Without Asking? Unauthorized Commissions? A Bit on the Side?

The exercise of modernizing the legal language would have a collateral benefit, an economist's external benefit. It would occupy the time of legislators that might otherwise be spent mischievously enacting more silly new laws.

Get rid of the French and Italian first. Then get rid of all that Ancient Italian (Latin) in the law - makework for law schools. A kind of jargon retained to mystify the few of us left without law degrees?

Isn't English supposed to be the language of America?

TOLLROADSnews 2008-03-27